440 
G. J. DE FEJERVARY 
rians and Ophidians are neither closely related 
to each öt he r nor to the Platynota and all that was believed 
to prove the contrary, is based on an unfortunate explanation of the 
simple phenomena of a certain convergence. The «S n a ke-Ty pe» 
is a generally known phenomenon in the evolution of Batrachians and 
Beptiles, as Proteus, the Coecilia, some genera of Scincidae and Anguidae, 
Zonuridae or Amphisbaenidae will sufficiently prove. An example of a very 
fine series from the well developed 
quadruped type to a nearly apode, 
snakelike form, is found in the genus 
Chalcides, illustrated by Mr. Boulen- 
ger (Textfig. 28). Moscisauria as 
well as the long-necked Dolichosauri- 
dae thus represent a somewhat 
snakelike structure, although in a 
much lesser degree than in the S c i n- 
c o i d Ablepharus for instance, and 
the same could be stated ina somewhat 
modified sense of several Pies iosa u- 
rian forms, without naturally any 
one trying to relate these to the Ophi¬ 
dians. The likeness between ver¬ 
tebrae of Monitors and some 
Anguidae, pointed out by Lydekker 
(Catal.), is a case of parallelism, or 
perhaps due to convergence. It would 
therefore be wrong to deduce on base 
of convergence orthogenetic rela¬ 
tionship between Mosasauria(=Pytho- 
nomorpha) and Ophidia as did Cope, 
or between Dolichosauridae and 
The question of the Mosasau- 
riaris being real Lacertilia, as demonstrated by Sir B. Owen, Baur, 
Osborn and Fürbringer, has been treated above, and Cope’s supposition 
about his «Pythonomorpha»’ s relation to the Snakes thus falls away 
naturally. In a similar way must I contest Baron Nopcsa’s theory of the 
Dolichosauridae being the predecessors of S n a k e s ; I could repeat here 
Baur’s sentence — although not applied to the group since then n e w ly 
precised by Nopcsa as Dolichosauridae , and therefore at that lime 
still confounded by Baur with the family Aigialosauridae — : «the Do¬ 
lichosauridae are not ancestral to any of the larger groups of Squamata.» 
Fig. 28. Representatives of normal quad¬ 
ruped-type arid Snake-type in Chalcides. 
a=Ch. ocellatus Forsk. (5 fingers) ; b = 
Ch. tridactylus Laur. (3 fingers) ; c=Ch. 
Guentheri Blgr. (1 finger). — After Bou- 
lenger, from Werner, Rept. Amph. in 
Samml, Göschen, p. 53. 
Ophidians, as did Nopcsa. 
